HRW denounces "collective punishment" in South Sudan’s Wau
Article
Comments (0)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
Human Right Watch
South Sudan: New Spate of Ethnic Killings
Urgent Need for Justice; UN Should Increase Patrols in Wau
(Nairobi, April 14, 2017) – Government soldiers and allied militias
deliberately killed at least 16 civilians in South Sudan’s western
town of Wau on April 10, 2017, in what appears to be an act of
collective punishment, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks were
against people presumed to support the opposition because of their
ethnicity.
The killings followed weeks of tensions in the area, where South
Sudan’s government has carried out an abusive counterinsurgency
operation since late 2015. When the UN Security Council meets to
discuss South Sudan later in April, it should condemn these crimes and
ask the peacekeeping mission in South Sudan what steps it intends to
take to deter further revenge killings in Wau and the surrounding
area.
“The pattern of abuses by government forces against civilians in Wau
has become predictable, with soldiers taking revenge against unarmed
civilians based on their ethnicity,” said Daniel Bekele, senior
director for Africa advocacy at Human Rights Watch. “The South Sudan
authorities need to call a halt to the killings, investigate, and
bring those responsible to justice.”
In November, a special investigation commissioned by the UN
recommended that peacekeepers should move around in armoured vehicles
rather than remaining in their bases to better identify threats to
civilian lives and prevent rapes on their doorstep. The UN is expected
to release an update on steps it has taken to carry out those
recommendations on April 17.
Hostilities erupted on April 8, outside of Wau, when government forces
opened an offensive on opposition-controlled areas and opposition
groups counter-attacked. The opposition killed two high-ranking
government officers, including a prominent member of the Dinka tribe
from the neighbouring Lakes region.
On April 10, government soldiers and Dinka militiamen went from house
to house in ethnic Fertit and Luo neighbourhoods on the southwest side
of Wau, and killed at least 16 civilians, apparently in retaliation
for the killing of the two men. Government authorities prevented UN
peacekeepers from moving freely around the town, limiting their access
to areas where the violence occurred.
The recent violence displaced nearly 8,000 people, about 3,800 of who
sought safety in the Catholic church. Others have moved to a site
adjacent to the United Nations’ Mission to South Sudan base, where
more than 25,000 people had already gathered under UN protection.
A 26-year-old Fertit, mother-of-four, who is married to a Luo and was
living in the Nazareth neighbourhood, said she was at home preparing a
fire when she heard gunshots in the morning of April 10: “The
attackers came over to my house. They wore civilian clothes, had their
faces whitened with ashes, and carried spears and guns. I lied and
told them that my husband was a Dinka and they said they would not
kill me because I am their wife. They said: ‘don’t go out in the
streets because we are killing people.’ When it calmed down, I went to
my neighbour’s house. She had been shot in the eye. Her four children,
between 3 and 15, were hiding under the bed. They were killed too. I
saw their bodies.”
Human Rights Watch expressed concern about the possibility of further
attacks on civilians, and urged the peacekeeping mission, UNMISS, to
increase the number of troops stationed in Wau and to ensure adequate
patrols of sensitive areas, such as around the Catholic church and
south-west of the city. After Kenyan troops withdrew from the
peacekeeping mission in 2016, the contingent in Wau has been short
staffed. The UN’s response to the deteriorating situation in Wau will
be an important test of the mission’s ability to improve protection of
civilians in hostile environments, especially following attacks on
bases in Malakal and Juba last year, Human Rights Watch said.
In Wau, the abuses have followed a familiar pattern in recent years,
with hostilities between government soldiers and opposition forces
followed by retaliatory attacks by mostly Dinka government forces and
militias against ethnic Fertit and Luo civilians.
In May 2016, Human Rights Watch documented a surge in government
abuses against civilians in Wau and surrounding villages beginning in
late December 2015, after the government deployed large numbers of new
soldiers, mostly Dinka from the former states of Northern Bahr
el-Ghazal and Warrap, to the area. Government soldiers were
responsible for a spate of targeted killings and arbitrary detentions
and abuse of ethnic Fertit and Luo civilians in February and again in
June. The violence and abuses in June forced more than 70,000 to flee.
South Sudan’s government has taken little action to stop these attacks
on civilians. Following each round of violence in 2016, president
Salva Kiir appointed investigation committees. The first one visited
Wau in March and the second in early July. A report submitted to
president Kiir on August 1 found that at least 50 civilians had been
killed on June 24 and 25, more than 100 shops were looted, and tens of
thousands of civilians were displaced, but no further criminal
investigations or prosecutions were carried out. While the media
reported that the army executed two soldiers on July 22 who had been
convicted by a military court for the murder of two civilians in a
residential area of Wau, no other steps were taken.
On April 12, President Kiir announced an investigation of the most
recent killings. But the government’s track record of investigating
these kinds of incidents in Wau and its weak judicial system raise
questions about its credibility. Credible criminal investigations and
transparent judicial procedures against those responsible are urgently
needed, Human Rights Watch said.
The government forces’ continuing crimes against civilians in Wau and
the lack of accountability underscore the urgent need for the hybrid
court envisioned in the 2015 peace agreement. Despite the agreement,
government soldiers have committed widespread violence against
civilians, not just in Wau, but also in Juba, Malakal and the
Equatorias, Human Rights Watch researchers found.
Human Rights Watch has also repeatedly called on the United Nations
Security Council to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on South Sudan
to reduce harm to civilians by increasing the cost of weapons used to
attack them. In December 2016, an attempt to pass an arms embargo at
the Security Council failed when eight members abstained. They
included Egypt and Japan, which still sit on the Security Council.
“South Sudan’s military commanders have once again shown they won’t
stop the abuse or hold anyone to account, and instead they obstruct
peacekeepers from doing their jobs to protect civilians,” Bekele said.
“The UN Security Council should make it clear that there will be a
price to pay for this kind of obstruction.”
www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/14/south-sudan-new-spate-ethnic-killings
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on South Sudan, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/africa/south-sudan
For more information, please contact:
In New York, Jehanne Henry (English, French): +1-917-443-2724
(mobile); or [email protected]. Twitter: @JehanneHenry
In Oslo, Jonathan Pedneault (French, English, Spanish): +47-907-16-245
(mobile); or [email protected]. Twitter: @j_pedneault
In New York, Akshaya Kumar (English): +1-347-448-1278 (mobile); or
[email protected]. Twitter: @AkshayaSays
In New York, Daniel Bekele (English, Amharic): +251-913-229-784
(Mobile); or +1-917-385-3878 (mobile); or [email protected]. Twitter:
@DanielBekele
--
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob
View this message at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oo8GNbu6P-ym9Xa9eXj5N1doEb%3DYM0AfsMUg6HOnMYMvw%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
